Everything About You

It pissed me off that one, Tate still looked so damn good, despite being too thin for his broad frame, and two, I still wanted him after all these years, even after what he did.

It was a sickness with only one cure. One I couldn’t afford.

“What happened to your date? Was it past his bedtime?”

I emptied what was left in my glass in one swallow, grabbed the bottle and refilled it again. This time I poured three fingers worth.

The bottle cost me five hundred dollars and I was drinking the liquid gold like water.

I glanced over at the reason why. “You happened.” I probably shouldn’t have admitted that, but at that moment I was past the point of giving any fucks.

I had zero left.

Why? Because fate was truly a cruel bitch.

I gulped down another mouthful of overpriced scotch.

“Do you normally drink like that?” His eyes flicked from my glass back to my face.

“Whether I do or don’t isn’t any of your business, Tate.”

He nodded, his lips pressed flat. But of course, he wasn’t done. “Josh seemed… nice. If not a bit young.”

I sucked on my teeth, biting back any response I was tempted to say.

“Have you two been together long?”

I twisted my head and stared at him. If he wasn’t going to get the clue that I didn’t want his company, then maybe I should leave instead. “Again, not your business.”

My eyes were drawn to his chest and the beads of water he’d missed when drying off. I was so tempted to drink them right from his skin.

I gritted my teeth.

“You didn’t even know his name,” Tate continued as if I hadn’t spoken.

I raised one eyebrow. “Your point?” My eyes dropped to the smooth black circle pendant that hung between his pecs off a long black chain. I didn’t remember him ever wearing any kind of jewelry in college.

Tate jerked one bare shoulder up in a half-shrug. I had kissed and tasted that shoulder many, many times. I had leaned my head on it, too. In comfort, in exhaustion, in a sweaty aftermath of tangled limbs and damp sheets.

“You wanted me to think you two were in a relationship.”

“I don’t do relationships,” I cut him off, then winced. I kept showing my damn hand.

Yes, I should put the scotch down and walk away from Tate while I still could. His presence, his proximity, was stirring up things inside me that I wanted to avoid.

“Never?”

“Only once. It didn’t turn out so well. After that, I decided the societal expectation of relationships wasn’t for me.”

The hard truth was, I’d never wanted anyone as much as Tate. Not before. Not since. It was like he had crawled under my skin and once he was embedded there, I couldn’t scrape him free.

It had been a curse I’d struggled with ever since the first time we got together. The first time we took the next step and became intimate. When we became a couple, who, in actuality, was not really a couple.

We were only a couple behind closed doors. Only friends outside of them.

“Roe…”

I hated him for the games we had to play back then. The secrets we had to keep.

I hated myself for going along with it, hoping things would change.

They did change, only not in the direction I had hoped.

“No,” I said sharply to cut him off from whatever bullshit was about to spew from his mouth. I didn’t want to hear it.

I didn’t want to hear any more of his excuses. I’d heard enough for a lifetime.

“I—”

“No. Don’t you fucking dare, T.” I squeezed my eyes shut at the nickname that so easily slipped out, like the last twelve years hadn’t happened, and whispered, “Just don’t.”

When he pried the glass from my fingers, I reluctantly opened my eyes. He put my drink to his lips and waited until I watched. Once I did so, albeit reluctantly, he downed the rest of my scotch before putting the empty glass on the ground near his bare feet.

No words were spoken as our eyes held across the four feet separating us.

Not one damn word was spoken when there was too much to say. Even though none of it should be said. It wouldn’t change a damn thing. It would only make the past, the failure and the disappointment hurt more than it already did.

But what he was attempting to do at this moment—by locking gazes with me, by drinking my scotch, by staying when he should walk away—was steal my control. I refused to allow it.

Instead, I had this crazy urge to steal his, to assert my dominance. To show him whose domain he’d entered.

Mine.

His unforgettable blue eyes tracked my every move when I stood and closed the short distance between us, even knowing every step might be my downfall. I did it anyway, convincing myself that I now held the power and he didn’t.